Defamiliarizing the Demographic Doomsday Diagram

Abstract

The two-dimensional diagram, which contains the “demographic doomsday curve” (DDC), is designated as the “demographic doomsday diagram”. In that diagram, the “global human population in billion” and the “time in year” are measured along the vertical axis/axes and the horizontal axis respectively. The DDC was introduced by Heinz von Foerster, an engineer of the University of Illinois, and his two co-authors in 1960. They projected/predicted that the “dynamic time-path of global human population” could be likened to an “elongated J-shaped curve” in a two-dimensional diagram. Such an elongated J-shaped curve is renamed as the DDC. The DDC indicates that global human population must increase exponentially, and ultimately reach infinity at some finite point of time, which is estimated to be Friday, 13 November 2026. But this article emphasizes that the defamiliarization of the DDC is inevitable and such inevitability will occur owing to the operation of the multitude of determinants. Defamiliarization means making/creating something, which is fresh, new, strange, or different from what is familiar and known. Among all the determinants of the defamiliarization of the DDC, the vital one is the undeclared war against women by men equipped with monopolistic power as well as monopolistic means, mechanisms and methods. Despite the continuing natural relation of complenentarity between men and women, such masculinized war against women, which started since the birth of the primitive society, still persists. By the principle of destructive self-interest, as opposed to enlightened self-interest, women are treated as “another species” like other sublunary non-human species. Such treatment compels the “woman species” to go through the four successive stages - rare species, vulnerable species, endangered species and extinct species. The awfully downward movement of woman species through the foregoing four stages gives rise to the eventual substitution of an “elongated L-shaped dynamic time-path of global human population” for an “elongated J-shaped DDC” in a two-dimensional diagram. Such an elongated L-shaped curve reveals that since the year 2026 A.D, the human population of the world will be steadily diminishing prior to the year 2050 A.D and eventually, since the year 2050 A.D, it will be stable at a minimum positive level. The secular constancy of global human population at a minimum positive level since the year 2050 A.D discloses that the global human population is locked/caught in a “low level population trap”.